Urban Siopao

Hn.

2007-04-18T22:08:00.000+08:00

I believe I am trying too hard.

Trip to christmas past

2007-04-10T21:57:00.000+08:00

What you looked at three years ago, the thing that satisfied you and answered all the troubles that managed to buzz around your, already cluttered, mind suddenly becomes irrelevant.

Nostalgia hits me, a shallow longing for the easy going past. It brings me back to memories half lived, of half dreamed days in high school. I stopped by this remote, yet all too familiar, coffee shop, trying to remember my junior and senior year with my mp3 player competing against the sounds of the distant metro that has successfully continued to resound in the unearthed lobby of my mind. Too bad there’s no siopao to boot.

Coffee didn’t bring as much as a high as I wanted to. I lingered here because the smell of thousand words breathed into cups appealed greatly to my olfactory. I remember having one earphone on my left ear while I carefully read the novel my friend so geekily insisted I should read. It has also been at that moment when the door of the café opened for the person whom I have not met for so long. I didn’t want to acknowledge his presence through words. I just lifted my head and gazed steadily into his eyes, if he did recognize me I doubt if saying anything would have eased the situation. He used to be someone significant in my life.

“Good resolutions are often made too late” and just as Dorian Gray said this, when I finally decided to smile it was then that he turned around and left.

I dwell in the past for a little while. I recall his face, my moments with him, and he would have meant the world before but now he’s just the answer given to me at the same instance that the question changed. He’s not the answer anymore, a sign maybe, a memory, but that is all. I guess life works this way and I know next time we meet I would smile at him and finally let go.

2007-04-05T22:11:00.000+08:00

After gym, Darren and I watched a movie. My shirt was a little wet from my hair. We saw 300, finally. After all my friends were raving about the muscles and the gore, the completely palpable hysteria brought on by the soundtrack and the men, men, men marching towards the Persians, we had to see it. And we were not unsatisfied. It was thrilling – the effects were well executed. But, seriously, did that severed Persian head need all the ten seconds devoted to its screen time as it revolved, slightly orange, against the yellow background? I don’t think so. Xerxes was awesome – so was Leonidas. Men, Men, Men. I think Darren thought of working out after the movie – he asked if we could stop by Fitness First before we went out to eat. He wanted to see the rates.

For the movie, I did not pass up the opportunity to buy siopao. It was a while since I had eaten something as wonderful as the Big R siopao located near the grocery store. We traveled from where we were to find it. Along the way, Darren asked why I liked siopao specifically. I returned the inquiry with why not? It was a good meal in itself – I liked how I could handle it with one hand. I liked the variety of its flavors, I liked how commonplace it was and how it retained its exotic appeal. I liked the color, the heat of it, the delightful obstinacy with which the siopao bits stuck to my teeth. I even liked the sauce but I could do without it.

I asked him what he liked best – what thing, activity or food he appreciated with the same intensity as I lied siopao. He said he was passionate about drinking. That startled me. A vice? Darren was a drinker? Excuse me? He laughed when I started ranting about how I should’ve guessed – at least he commuted, he didn’t drive. He laughed so hard I had to pull him up off the floor. He explained that he didn’t drink alcoholic beverages – he was passionate about tasting the different flavors of drinks in the same way I was trying to find the best siopao in Manila. I understood – I was fucking relieved.

It was a good day today. We walked, we talked, we enjoyed spending time together. Thank God for him.

O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first,
Methought she purged the air of pestilence!
That instant was I turn'd into a hart;
And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,
E'er since pursue me. –Shakespeare (Twelfth Night)

Muwahahaha!

2007-03-22T21:15:00.000+08:00

I’M GOING TO GRADUATE FROM HIGH SCHOOL!

Musings

2007-03-14T18:02:00.000+08:00

Gentle distortions by society form grotesque images. People with passion are constantly attacked by ongoing derogatory terms that label individuals as freaks, burgis, weird, trying hard and other words coined to categorize people. A canard exceptionally hides behind the mask of “the majority” while the truth remains in the piercing words of Oscar Wilde that “to be popular is to be mediocre” I laugh at how their malign intentions outweigh their complacently righteous claims.

“You rank people as if you’re someone special” -Mimori Ao

I have always felt rancor for people whose prejudices manage to take individuals down with them. It is a type of bullying that has existed since my senior days. A classic example is my kohai (younger by one year level). I remember her talent in drawing and the look of calmness and composure she always gave off when she started to draw. I have seen in her the effort of self-expression in the stroke of brush, pen, pencil, pastel as she creates a world within a world– my kohai - a potential genius. And yet there’s a price for persevering in transforming raw talent into an unadulterated mastery; a rift is purposely created. Maybe the word loner could best capture such a case of banishment. In my memory, with my kohai I have given words of encouragement in hopes that the spark would be kept alive and her confidence sheltered from harsh comments and sordid glares.

Despite this, it continuously amazes me how my kohai, like some of ~~the geniuses I know~~ my friends, live through this kind of circumstance and leave our school as a stronger person and never just the loner or the freak, but as the artist, the poet - the individual.

A person is entitled to be her own person. Passions are supposed to burn ardently, stoked in school, strengthened by virtues, and not the contrary. But in today’s context, a passionate person is an impractical dreamer living in a world where an automaton lifestyle is called for. Then again, we make our own choices and perform actions that affect other people, and in all honesty society isn’t always the one to be blamed. In the end, a person must endeavor in going past pseudo-limits and prejudices so as to find her own self and not just a reflection of a banal society.

growing up makes it harder to continue dreaming -Saiunkoku Monogatari
we should be like plants
even if soaked [they] still stay put, growing fresh flowers -One Litre of Tears

Turning over a new leaf

2007-02-28T23:22:00.000+08:00

Life at school is driving me. I cannot update as often during March.

Ito Ang Landas Patungong Langit

2007-02-20T22:01:00.000+08:00

Ito Ang Landas Patungong Langit

Habang naglalakad
Sa madilim na daan
Ni’ ilaw, ni anino’y di’ masilayan

Ang dilim sinusubukang
Magapi ang nag-aalab kong pagnanais
Na sumulong at hindi talikdan
Itong landas patungong langit na aking dinaraanan

Muntik na akong magapi ng kaba;
Hanggang…
Sa iskinita malapit sa lumang gusali
Tanglaw ng stall sa aking mga mata’y bumati!

Bagong pag-asa at bakas ng ngiti sa aking mga labi
Sabi ko na nga ba ito nga ang landas patungong langit.

Ang halimuyak na dala ng makamundong nasa
Sa bawat hakbang laya aking nadarama
Malapit nang makamtan itong pinakamimithi
Nalalasap ko na!

Etoh sa sandaling ito
Sa wakas ay nangahas akong
Abutin ang mga kamay
Na nag-aalay ang supremang sarap at bango
Nitong bilog at malambot na siopao!
Asado, Bola-bola
Sige po lahat na
Sabay tango at hugot sa aking pitaka
Ang sarap talaga ng siopao
Heaven! Langit talga!

Your heart should burn to do battle
--pay no heed to death, do not lose heart!
The one who watches from the side is a careful man,
but the one who walks in front protects himself and saves his
comrade,
and through their fighting they establish fame –Gilgamesh

Health is wealth

2007-02-12T16:58:00.000+08:00

I discovered that a slightly larger stand sold small siopaos in Robinsons’ Metro East called Big R by FX and Jeepney drivers alike. The punch I was hoping to encounter wasn’t as surprising as the first siopao in this place but it was fine. I am in Compass Internet café because my mother’s laptop went haywire as I was updating. I had a long update planned – unfortunately, I can only offer this glimpse in lieu of the fact that my post was eaten. I have been properly educated against lengthy blog entries and am now properly paranoid.

Started going to gym in Fitness First – I saw the gym in Big R the first time through and I was immediately intrigued. Its presence made me conscious of my body. By no means am I athletic. I begin the excursion to find the perfect body in a few weeks – after classes, during the summer so I am fully focused.

I talked to one of its sales ladies in a black jacket and a blue shirt underneath. There were personal trainers roaming the machines and the treadmills. They had uniform vests that had “personal trainer” sewn on the back, immediately below the neck. I met my trainer-to-be. He seemed nice. They took me to the bathrooms and I saw the steam room and the sauna – full of half-naked women sweating like pigs or vegetables soaking up the heat, expanding in a pot of oil. The heavy water compounding on my face when the sales girl opened the steam room warned me of the possibility of suffocation.

I was satisfied by what I found, overall. Clean, good facilities. My peers are old women and pubescent girls. I am usually good with people so I hope to make a lot of new, varied friends here. Because I spend so much of my time in an exclusive all-girls school, becoming acquainted with new people becomes more like a task than I’m willing to accept. Time to break out – just before college.

This gym business got my parents thinking. They want to join, too. I absolutely forbade them from coming with me. How embarrassing, I thought. Besides, how was I supposed to learn all those things a girl is supposed to learn on her own if her parents are constantly in the background? They agreed to not interfere with my schedule. They left me free to decide when I went, how I went and if I wanted someone to come with. This amount of freedom, I believe, is adequate. Thank God for understanding parents.

Texted Darren about all these. He seemed pleased to hear that I was going to spend most of my summer in Big R. He said the commute from his house wasn’t bad – he’d be able to see me more often.

So, s Big R k mgsu-summer?
Basically, yeah. ^ ^
Galing! Makikita na kta plgi. Ktakts tau dyan ah.
Pde rn ^ ^
Xmpr nmn. Hahah. I am so happy ryt now. Mdli lang kasi magcmmute frm hir to dir
Ahh. Isang sakay lang?
uu. I am so happy right now. You must be happy too. Are you smiling? Gnda m pag nagsmile.

I didn’t reply. But I was smiling.

I was afraid, so I did not go up to him. -Gilgamesh

Big-R flour balls

2007-02-07T20:46:00.000+08:00

I went back to the siopao in Robinsons’ Metro East. Its taste is redeemed – I felt the same kind of hopefulness – whatever miracle it had, it wasn’t because of any hormone of mine. What a relief.

Humdudum

2007-02-04T22:23:00.000+08:00

Foray into the past 24 hours:

On my way to Gateway, I dropped by Robinsons’ Metro East to buy a new top for myself. Sadly, everything I have inspires no interest. I found that I must, periodically, allow myself to become concerned with my appearance above fussing over my face and my facial expressions if I am to get anywhere with people. I found the top I was looking for in a few minutes. The excursion into the shop and the mild exhilaration, not to mention the insuppressible anxiety at the thought of being late, made me hungry. I found myself looking at the sad excuse of a Greenwich branch. Most hopes diminished at finding something suitable to eat before having to rush off to Megamall, I was saved by a small siopao stand that I deigned overlook.

The siopao was fairly large and was well warmed. I do not know if it was gratitude at finding a siopao stand or my almost extreme hunger that amplified the sweetness and the ineffably hopeful softness of the thing in my mouth. It was extreme happiness, standing outside the stand, gulping down half the siopao in two mouthfuls.

I got to Gateway and Darren was waiting for me. We went to see a movie. I am afraid I’m not much of a movie critic – I tend to be biased because I am obdurately defensive of the (not so apparent) talent of my favorite actors and, sometimes, actresses. We ate at some Japanese restaurant after the movie. Our conversation centered around the film because we were both fairly certain that the movie – whatever it was (I’m glad I find myself slowly, willfully, erasing the details of the dragging romantic-comedy out of my memory. Whatever blotches of it remain will forever taint my understanding of Philippine cinema.) - we were convinced that, next time, we were better off watching mothers pick out the best fruit in the market. Darren took me to the megatren station.

You came by train?
No, I didn’t. My dad drove me.
Where do you live?
Antipolo.

I was baffled.

There’s a train here from Antipolo?
No, there’s a train here from Santolan.
Where’s that?

I explained and he realized that he shouldn’t have had the two-hour conversation explaining why he needed to go to Gateway, of all places, with his father who was reluctant to get up and go anywhere. At the end of it, I volunteered my services to guide him to wherever he lived.

There’re FXs that go to Antipolo from Santolan.
There ARE?!

More explaining. We rode the train together. There were a lot of people hanging off the metal rod. Darren took hold of the plastic handgrips to keep himself upright during the trip. He gripped me around my waist because I wasn’t tall enough and there were no available seats and around the metal rods were attached an army of hands and it was one of those situations I believed it both a blessing and a curse to be a bit short. A woman who reminded me of the Elder Gillenormand shook her head disapprovingly in our direction. Darren and I saw her. He grinned a little shyly, offering to loosen his grip. I was offended that the lady doled out her disapproval so eagerly. We were doing nothing wrong. The train was in motion and it was hard to keep my balance. Maybe she wanted me to sit on the floor instead. Her misplaced loyalty to petty social protocol insulted me – the situation we were forced into was clear as it was all around us and it included her. She had absolutely no right to judge us. So, I inched closer to Darren and our legs touched partly. I slipped my arms around his neck and rested my head on his collarbone, looking indiscreetly into Gillenormand’s little black eyes. She looked away, muttering something, undoubtedly, awful. Well.

Isi ka lang

I told Darren he was too kind – that people, no matter how experienced, had no place judging strangers. In retrospect, I’ve been a bit of a judge, too. So, my apologies Street Kid. Darren took an FX to Antipolo home after giving my hands a tight squeeze. He told me to text him if/when a good movie comes along.

Degrees of comparison

2007-01-31T17:31:00.000+08:00

Because of a severely dysfunctional DSL connection, I found out only today that I passed both courses in UST. That’s the third school I’ve been admitted to. I believed this victory against the odds must be celebrated. I urged my father to take me to megamall. I saw this skirt in Kamiseta that I wanted to try. My father wouldn’t mind buying the skirt for me, if I wanted it, in light of the good news. My future was secure – I had choices, I had the best schools available and I had just received one of the papers I crammed. I got a relatively high score. Well done, I think. My father wouldn’t mind buying the skirt for me, if I wanted it. =)

When we got there, however, the skirt was gone. Sad. To lift my spirits, he took me to the food court. He said he’d buy me siopao somewhere.

So, after a few entries that dedicated valuable Internet space to the criminally juvenile, half-formed and irrelevant prognostications of a young individualist, I renew my dedication to siopao. Cruel of me. I should’ve thought of the higher purpose for which omnivores were made: to eat. The luxury of fine cuisine and the spread of its influence is a life calling and I have strayed to indulge my petty observations, wielding my less than appropriate opinions. Allow me to incur justice by fully describing the atrocity of a siopao I had this afternoon – the experienced, heavy hand of karma slapped me in the form of the first inedible siopao.

My father brought it to me in a bag. It did not have the reassuring weight of a siopao that I was used to handling. I first thought, how queer! But, I resolved to go against the ominous omens and allow an experience to unfold. I started to peel the paper stuck to the bottom of the siopao carefully. I wanted to waste nothing – as always. However, large clumps of the bread stuck obstinately to the paper and I grew tired. The situation was something I had not experienced since I considered myself a “professional” siopao eater. I shrugged off my high expectations. I prepared myself for dissatisfaction. I took a bite – all bread. I appreciated the bread. The first bite was decent. I took another, trying to get to the filling. No filling. My mouth was full. I chewed and swallowed and took a third bite. The bread was hard and cold in my mouth but I could finally taste a little of the sauce seeping from the isolated center, wherever that was. I noticed the bread was becoming harder to chew, harder to swallow. I looked at the siopao I was eating and noticed that I had revealed the tiny, pitiful nest of meat and egg. The white bread all around it was under done, some of it was still partly frozen. I threw it away. What a waste.

I end this juncture with a depressing conclusion: If the best siopao in Manila exists, then it shares its territory with a vicious rival – the worst siopao in Manila.

One should never let any of the faculties of nature lie fallow. –Gustave Flaubert (Madame Bovary)

Really

2007-01-26T22:50:00.000+08:00

I couldn’t update yesterday because of the excitement. I couldn’t analyze anything properly so I didn’t attempt to organize my feelings for fear of diminishing their impact.

I came home to a mobile bursting from fifteen unread messages and 3 missed calls from Darren. The messages were a series of invitations. Originally, he asked me to come meet him, by 5pm, in Gateway. The message after apologized profusely, saying he realized, after successfully sending the message, that Gateway Mall was too far for me to travel on a school night. The third message asked me, instead, to meet him at Gateway on Saturday, the 27th. The fourth and fifth messages informed me of the time and the place, respectively. He retracted the invitations and voided the details of the meeting (piece by piece) with another apology via the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth messages. The tenth came with the considerate explanation that, possibly, this was too soon – it was too abrupt. The next five proceeded to propose the 3rd of February, Gateway Mall. He wanted to watch a movie with me, saying the first experience was fun, worth repeating.

I answered him, saying 3rd of February was fine by me – Gateway was an exceptional choice for a venue. Also, consequently, I haven’t tasted the siopaos there. A mighty chance presents itself. I look forward to this. However, cementing the outing cost me around 20 messages. Something more than the prospect of siopao-hunting builds the anticipation I feel. I am really, really excited. I haven’t seen Darren for a while. I realize his presence is palpable enough to be missed. Seeing it now, for what it is, I do like him in the same, friendly, non-dramatic way that I am attached to a semi-favorite notebook or my mobile or my worn-out iPod. But this is the first time I’ve had the opportunity to feel giddy about seeing someone. I decide, now, that I do not name the emotion. I forbid myself from raising any questions about it. It simply feels brand new in the inner cavity reserved for feeling and the chemicals my brain excreted to produce this sensation is brand new. One of its effects is anticipation, anxiety, a queer mix of apprehension and want.

Must be the siopaos – the treat, the absolute desire to scout for new species.

Her mouth didn’t look as if smiling was its favorite activity. –Cornelia Funke (The Thief Lord)

shhhh

2007-01-25T10:15:00.000+08:00

I am updating from SCHOOL! I brought my old faithful to school – for the hell of it. I wanted no excuse to document the general flow of high school life during the last few days I’m allowed to experience it.

On second hand, maybe I shouldn’t – I see a teacher coming.

Drainage systems

2007-01-23T23:25:00.000+08:00

School is winding down. We’ve begun the long process of stepping away from the present to peer into the past and look to the future – it’s that time of the year. March is slowly approaching, bringing with it the scent of skin burning under the first rays of summer and the cool, steady grip of the air conditioners from open restaurant doors welcoming families celebrating graduations. I’m going to miss high school – people have begun to spontaneously erupt in bursts of nostalgic gaiety but by the time their stories are told and out in the open to be discussed, perused and dissected, they close their mouths and their eyes together and enter a state of coma for a few seconds. Their sealed lips exclaim silence. Suddenly, their bright red fire turns cold, they turn blue. Some cry. They’re slowly severing the bonds and, at the same time, testing them, making them stronger. It is a confusing way to depart – they weave and let loose. They break and they create.

With more free time, I can prowl (This brings on images of tigers hunting black and white zebras.) the streets of Manila more often and finally deliver on the founding promise of this blog: to realize the existence of the best siopao in Manila. But, I cannot help but be held up in all this graduating energy – all this surreptitious energy just waiting to be released. I can feel it in me, too. I need siopao more than ever – to keep my mind preoccupied and at ease.

"But aren't you a student?"

"Student? Why should I be? No, I am nothing."

"But you must be something. You must do something?"

"But why?"

"Why, because--everybody does something!"

"Are you doing something?"

"Oh well, but you are not a lady."

"No, heaven be praised."

"Thank you."

- Jens Peter Jacobsen (Mogens and Other Stories)

Musings

2007-01-20T21:43:00.000+08:00

A severe lack of sleep prompted me to prioritize pleasure over the necessities of a graduating student. I went to a restaurant to eat tonight – I needed the few hours break before heaving the over-burdened sack of duties on top of my shoulders. There was a child outside my window, looking at the dessert tray. He pointed at the small slice of chocolate mousse. I was stoic – I couldn’t smile.

I was a kid and I thought of poverty. Its definition was ambiguous and familiar only through countless lectures that force-fed church doctrines in school. I was a kid who thought about eradicating the useless part of society, a statement I thought was fair enough - considering the lucrative businesses the government made out of my parents’ tax. The poor did not pay their taxes. They are the free riders that possessed the temerity to complain about their situation. Eradicate, get rid of them. In my mind, the poor were the ones who stole, the uneducated who did stupid things. They were the bastards who sold their votes for food, their folly included supporting corrupt officials after the same people blatantly stole from them and laziness was their commonality. Why would the affluent care about the less? My parents worked for their riches!

These thoughts are unrefined and admittedly evil by its apparent prejudice. Stealing, tax evasion, corruption, tolerating corruption, lack of support to education for the illiterate are just some of the things the elite have been guilty of. I am now in high school and I continue to experience life outside the rags and deprivation that the poor undergo. You might claim that it is not for me to voice out who the poor are or what they need. True, but I have seen poverty, not as one who failed to face reality, but with a soul that recognized love and the lack of it.

The kid left a short while after realizing I wasn’t going to buy him any dessert. He stuck his tongue out at me, as though I was responsible for his dessert – like I owed him anything. Kid, we all live in this country. Just because I can afford to eat here, doesn’t mean I don’t have problems – doesn’t mean my parents don’t work hard to put food on the table. We’re all here, trying to solve our problems and you don’t see me begging for shit from my people wealthier than myself. I suppose I should be more considerate because I do have what I need and more. But, that’s not my point. My point is, we’re all doing something wrong. Just because we’re more blessed, doesn’t mean my parents didn’t work hard for it. Doesn’t mean I’m a rich snob. Doesn’t mean I owe them anything. Doesn’t mean that just because I didn’t buy him the cake, I won’t help him by being a responsible citizen and doing my duty, voting for the correct candidates, try to educate people. I’m a good citizen but I don’t owe the kid any cake – I owe him my respect.

But, my conscience was bothered.

Nevertheless, not to extinguish our free will, I hold it to be true that Fortune is the arbiter of one-half of our actions, but that she still leaves us to direct the other half, or perhaps a little less. - Nicolo Machiavelli (The Prince)

RL

2007-01-11T23:58:00.000+08:00

I must take a leave of absence. Too many things going on in my life. (read: my life is being taken over by my studies, which are too tedious and real life related to be interesting on any level, and my life is being overtaken by my serious lack of self-discipline and my procrastinating.) However, no drama will go undocumented.

I have found no siopao comparable with the fried siopao on that black corner near one of the stations along the track to Santolan. I am dismayed, beyond end, by this one thing alone than by anything and everything compounded: I cannot relocate the stand that sold fried siopao.

Darren has a personality – oh, but it’s been buried by such agonizing apathy that it’s difficult to maintain a conversation (let alone a relationship). He seems to lack opinions and his vocabulary is less than stunning. (The combination tends to give birth to dozens of pointless silences) We shall see. But he is kind – the dramatic kind of “kind” that prevents him from being completely pathetic. Oh, sad. =(

Lunch

2007-01-08T19:15:00.000+08:00

Another clamoring for siopao arrested me on the way to buy C2 apple. I sought the line that led to the food at once. Our school canteen wasn’t, by far, the best place to serve siopao. It smelled, as all public canteens are destined to inherit the pungency, of the smoke from the cooking oil. This, in itself, wasn’t suitably unappetizing. The place also smelled, faintly, of dirty water. I resolved to eat my siopao away from the cool interior, which housed the tables and chairs. I marched back up to our classrooms and started on my meal there. The siopao, unfortunately, wasn’t bola-bola. The employees of our canteen said that that siopao didn’t sell. Why ever not? In stalls outside, where the market was undoubtedly larger and the people more varied, I’ve endured frustrating encounters with brash, snapping, older women who, irritated at the redundant inquiry, told me that their bola-bola siopaos, as usual, were sold out. I was told to come back before lunch, before merienda, before dinner, before breakfast. WTH? I do not think I will be discouraged by this apparent prejudice when the truth remains alien to the wonderful, though ignorant, suppliers in our cafeteria. This strikes home. I needs must do something. A campaign, I think, is in order.

Darren texted me. He asked how I was. Fine, I replied, trying to hide my amusement at the tactless opening remark with which he invited me to see a movie with him. How abundantly gifted in coincidences the world is. (Having said that, I feel like Yoda.) I assured him that that a movie was fine. He told me he was free this weekend. Drat, I thought. I had tests next week and probably won’t be free till I graduate. I meant this sarcastically, inviting his ire and inciting, hopefully, a small rant about the school system bearing down too harshly upon us. Rants provide graceful insights into the bitter, somewhat chaotic, core of a personality more efficiently than any slum book I’ve encountered. It actually allows one to stare, blatantly, into the face of the wit and fury of a person undergoing the “ravaging” of “passions”. (How very Victorian.) He sent a sad-faced smiley.

Oh, dear.

He seems to lack a personality.

As for poets and bards, let one of them redecorate your life and you’ll never be able to find any of it again. –Parke Godwin ( FireLord )

Movement of chalk and pen

2007-01-05T21:44:00.000+08:00

The first three days of school were not enough to successfully jolt me back to reality. I sat in the classroom dully, half-poisoned by the thought of having to take the required tests next week, of having homework upon homework in calculus and algebra piled on top of the steady growing list of papers to be submitted. I managed to cram the papers I needed to submit on the last day of Christmas vacation. To make up for lost time, my teachers have decided to start giving out everything now. Due dates stretch to February. They all say we’d better get started. Get started on what? The powerpoint presentation for Health, the 10-page report for Social Studies, the two short stories for English or study for the major subjects scheduled to dole out tests next week? Start on what, exactly? I was ready to demand a schedule of activities to help me manage my time – see if they can fit in the necessities like bathing, eating, sleeping into the over-crowded mess of academic requirements crammed into the 24 hours of the day.

Good day, today, though, despite the bleak weather and the stress I can feel trickling down my back. I met someone in McDonald’s Katipunan (I had an unusual craving for a McFlurry). He introduced himself as Darren. He has seriously funny looking ears and misshapen fingers on his hands. His palm is strangely very soft and warm, almost pink with the blood under his skin.

He was sniffing, sniffing every hollow his nostrils could reach, filling his lungs with the sulphur and the woman. –Erwin Castillo (The Firewalkers)

Happy new year!

2007-01-02T11:32:00.000+08:00

Happy New Year!

New years

2006-12-31T23:53:00.000+08:00

There’re only a few minutes left for 2006 and I am delighted to spend the last few seconds here. The last few days bore witness to the general improvement in my ability to cope with my family’s queer inability to accept my fixation with siopao. Father brought home two siopaos from Megamall today and I’m sitting here in a relatively good mood, half-way through finishing the first half of my siopao. The other went to my brother who gobbled it up in less than five minutes. I shook my head. Clearly, he does not understand the art with which siopao must be consumed or how much pleasure could be had from savoring the flavor of the special white bread and the steaming hot filling.

I, too, breaking out of old ways, had discovered solitude and the melancholy which is at the basis of religion. – V.S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River

Merry christmas

2006-12-27T22:48:00.000+08:00

Most of the holiday load I need to do consists of reports and papers. Delicious. My friends invited me to go out to Galleria with them. Of course, I wanted to. Aside from the lure of the lately evasive siopao, I wanted an excuse to prolong the period before studying. I was a class A procrastinator. So, I took some of the holiday money I managed to acquire from very generous relatives and dressed. I was about to leave when my mother stopped me, asking where I was going. I said I had a day out with my friends. She retorted that Christmas was time for the family. Christmas, I said, was officially over this year – it’s the 27th. My mother, sometimes, fails to recognize a failing trail of reasoning, when her logic starts to wear out and she becomes a fairly decent nag. She said I couldn’t go out because we were going to do something as a family tonight and I couldn’t be late. I asked – what was it? She didn’t say. I daresay she squirmed, the old lady in a tight corset, she squirmed. She said it was a surprise. Whatever. I didn’t believe her. I said I’d be out for a few hours and I’d be back before 9pm – surely the “surprise” could wait till a decent hour before being unveiled. My family had a penchant for sleep deprivation. Absolutely not, she said. Stay home. Don’t go. Get out of those clothes.

Whatever.

Now, I’m pissed. What was this mother doing, ruining my life? I need friends the same way she needs a hobby. I texted my friends, told them I was forbidden by the great Goose Goddess. They didn’t reply. Perfect end, really. I was the innocent in all this and I have to bear the brunt of all the misplaced, negative emotions. Some holiday. Some Christmas. Allow me to point out that Christmas is a time for family and friends. My parents allowed themselves to go to a horrible party in the honor of my father’s boss’s promotion – on the 23rd. That’s more Christmas than the 27th, by anybody’s reckoning.

Oh, sod it. I’m pissed. I was the victim of double-standard morality, of adult dependency and of parental power trips and my attempt to reunite myself with the siopao was, once again, successfully done in. It is now 2.30pm and I needs must start on this killer philosophy essay if I’m to get anywhere with it by 6.00pm.

“Mes compaingnons cui j’amoie et cui j’aim, . . . Me di, chanson.” –Michael Crichton, Timeline

Mother and child

2006-12-24T08:15:00.000+08:00

I decided to appeal to the soft core of my mother’s maternal instincts. I asked her for siopao, again, for tomorrow because I garnered the rather foolish hope that she’d give in simply due to the occasion. How very wrong I was.

I do not understand her resignation to thwart the encounter between one of my most persistent fetishes and myself.

“Is not general incivility the very essence of love?” – Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

December Holidays

2006-12-20T18:13:00.000+08:00

I find it unappealing to pass holidays in a state of disappointment so I did not expect my mother to comply with the demands vociferated by my needs. I asked for the humble siopao to take part in our Christmas feast.

“Nothing grand, just a platterfull of them. It’d be nice to recognize something I eat for Christmas, you know.” I said. I didn’t mean that disrespectfully. I was aggravated by the fact that I had not had siopao since my birthday on the 13th. I wanted the complicity of my parents and the holiday – the occasion, in my goal to eat siopao again, before I was forced into my school cafeteria where bola-bola siopao are extinct. I wanted the guarantee of the attendance of a siopao in the family Christmas dinner. I wanted that. God, I wasn’t asking for a laptop or a new camera or an iPod – all of which, regretfully, I did ask for, but I did not receive. I asked thrice, for good luck, was a good child for most of the year, and no luck. Thus, I gave away the last childish inclination, the last vestige of innocence found in believing in both Karma and Santa Claus. This was a year full of “growing up”.

So. I am sad to report – no siopao for Christmas. No Laptop, no iPod, no new camera – those I knew how to live without because I had to do so for most of my life. However, something so significantly miniscule as the pleasure of sinking my teeth into siopao is an experience too normal, too minute to endure without. I almost envy Santa Claus (that I am certain, I do not believe in. I am certain he does not exist.) for the unfailing quality of his milk and cookies. Pfft.

Railways of past and present

2006-12-17T19:51:00.000+08:00

Today, I went to ride the train at about 5.00pm to Katipunan. I wanted to eat at McDonald’s. I desperately wanted an excuse to ride the megatren. The entire experience gave me a glimpse of real life – the life I want to join soon. I want the experience of touching people – of being able to irk, to irritate, to inspire, to look. I want a sensory trip. So, after school, I decided to go to Katipunan. No real objection from my parents since I knew, basically, how to commute to and from that area.

I was just in time for the train. It pulled in as I was going up the steps to the platform. The fear of being left behind, the sincere urgency to get on that train made me hurry – it was the pull, the rush, the need to not be left, to not be late, to be somewhere at that time, the need, the importance, the catalyst that was that train, impelled me to run, to almost trip on the last few steps and to push the already slightly closed doors open for the rest of my body. What a thrill!

I rode a jeepney to McDonald’s and ate a one-piece chicken meal. I put in an order for large fries and told the cashier to give me the catsup number 4 – my favorite, midway between sweet and sour. It rained a little during my meal and I semi-panicked – my mother told me that it was harder to commute when it rained. I prayed semi-fervently for the rain to stop. After a few minutes, the drizzling subsided and I was greeted by the sun and some of my school friends from the other side of the glass window.

Regretfully, I found that no siopao was available at any stall in the Katipunan station. How misleading these things are – I thought each station carried, at least, one small stall dedicated to the purveyance of national delicacies to the starving members of the public waiting for operational public transportation. I must learn not to generalize – I must reduce the scope of the influence of siopao and remind myself that it is a fairly common food that may or may not exist in a public place. I breathed, trying to stand steadily, in that station after having quelled the heavy despair from my expectations. Another day without siopao. God bless.

One time she made me, out of one of my father’s black socks, an octopus with a mustache and a red top hat. – Jennifer Finney Boylan, She’s Not There

Sipao

2006-12-13T17:24:00.000+08:00

The incident that prompted me to become interested enough to document my life was the day I felt responsible to the public to document my burgeoning affection for siopao and my well-intended search for the best siopao in metro manila. I won’t deny that I’ll talk about myself. I must. We all do. As much as my devotion to siopao occupies anywhere from 20% to 100% of my thoughts, I cannot exclude myself from being noticed by my consciousness.

Today, I was outside one of the newly built, semi-purple train stations tracking the route to Santolan. I bought myself a fried siopao. Fine, says my conscience. I bought two siopaos. I felt the heat radiating from them through the white plastic bag. There’s no eating on the train so I left off, trying to ignore the vicious scent that arrested my motion and compelled me to think twice before prioritizing my curfew over my more basic need to indulge in the glorious sensations aroused by a siopao.

It was with the same conviction to uphold the veracity of my obsession, the same calling to eat, that I start this blog, this vengeance to explore the vast, hopefully heretofore uncharted, territory of the Urban Siopao jungle.